By Kemo Cham
The election of a new Burkina Faso government and the detention of Guinea's ex-Junta leader may hold promise for the case against another ex-Junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Kamara, said a UN official.
Kamara is part of about half a dozen people so far indicted for crimes relating to the infamous massacre of over a hundred anti coup Guinean protesters in 2009.
Zainab Hawa Bangura, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s Special Representative for Sexual Violence in Conflict, said ousted former President Blaise Campaore had proven "reluctant" to handover Kamara who has lived in Burkina Faso since his ouster in 2009.
Kamara is accused of giving the instruction for the attack on the protesters in the Guinean capital, Conakry’s main stadium, where a UN-led investigation in 2010 found out that scores of women were subjected to rape and other inhuman treatment.
“The former president Blaise Campaore was reluctant to hand him over and we hope that this new government will cooperate,” Bangura said Friday at a press conference in Freetown.
The UN office against sexual violence was created in 2009 and the former Health minister is the second holder of the position. She was speaking in the first meeting with the local press after two years.
She was appointed to the position in 2013. She has been on vacation for the last three weeks and has been taking part in public discussions sharing her experience trotting the world dealing with sexual and gender based violence cases.
The UN envoy said South Sudan, Darfur, CAR and DRC which she described as ‘rape city’, were her major challenges in Africa in terms of dealing with sexual abuse of women.
The rise of extremism is also posing a major challenge to the UN`s effort in dealing with the issue, as has been demonstrated by the so-called Islamic State (ISIS), which she said is her office`s greatest challenge globally.
In the second half of the New Year, the UN office also intends to shine the light on West Africa where Boko Haram and Islamist insurgents in Mali appear to be upping their game, she said.
ICC
In Guinea, all the accused have been identified but legal deficiencies and inability to collect evidence were among the major obstacles to a successful trial, she said.
Based on an agreement with the government, a UN-led investigation involving the questioning of 400 witnesses resulted in the indictment of six people, none of whom have been tried yet.
General Sekouba Konate, the man who took over from Moussa Dadis Kamara, was a key witness to the case.
Konate was recently detained on money laundering charges in the US and Bangura hopes that could prove potentially helpful for the case.
The International Criminal Court initially investigated the massacre for possible trial. But it found that the number witnesses involved were too huge for a successful international trial, and so it pulled back, said Bangura.
The UN also realized that the government didn’t have the expertise to handle the case and therefore through an agreement a panel of local judges was undergoing training to ensure an internationally acceptable standard of justice delivery.
A second key witness in the case against Kamara is the man who shot him on the head leading to his ouster. And that man, Lieutenant AbubakarDiakite, a former Presidential aide, currently leaves in France, which is unwilling to hand him over because Guinea has the death penalty.
Bangura said she has been working with the Guinean government to amend that law, which makes the retention of the Justice Minister by the new government as welcome news.
Another obstacle is that other indictees were serving at top positions in the current government, making it hard to touch them.
157 people were killed in the incident at the height of protests against the CNDD junta that forcefully took over after the sudden death of strongman General Lansana Conte.
Conte`s over two decades of rule was preceded by about 24 years of dictatorship under independence ruler Ahmed SekouTuray, both of whom ruled with iron fist resulting in countless mass graves.
And this, said Bangura, has become a problem from the view point of the Guinean government who says it doesn't have the expertise to collect evidence relating to the 2009 incident.
(C) Politico 13/01/16
